It’s that time again, folks. “I realize the title might mislead you to believe that I’ve been trapped in a dank, dark underground dungeon for a year. In reality, though, I have been without Microsoft Windows for over a year. On November 1 of last year I blew away my old Windows 98/SUSE Linux 8.0 Professional dual-boot installation, and loaded SUSE Linux 9.2 Professional, by itself, on my box. While I know others have been Windows-free for much longer than a year, others simply cannot imagine doing without it. Here’s my experience.” Be gentle.
This is all we need – more Linux religion. Oh well, even the priests like Linux. OK Microsoft, start giving this away to Churches.
When some idiot immediately says that XP is supposed to be stable, but isnt, I have to disredit the rest of their story. I have never ran into any XP stability issues on good hardware. Blah, blah, blah.
You don’t need to be rude. I’ve had stability problems with XP on some computers too. That’s just his experience, not yours.
In that case, you’ve never worked a single day in the IT industry.
Windows XP is a very good OS. The stability issues come when you begin installing applications onto XP. At that point, you’ll notice where the OS bogs down and becomes unstable. You cannot always blame everything on hardware (same goes for Linux). Where I work, we all have Dell PC’s. While I’m not a big fan of Dell, their PC’s are decent equipment. However, I’ve had to reinstall XP countless times because it would just get to the point where the system is unusable. Outlook would consistently screw up (not saving passwords – bug in Outlook that requires registry editing whenever you change a user’s email password), etc… Don’t blame that on hardware.
I dual boot at home between XP and Suse 10.0 (just upgraded to 10.0 yesterday from 9.3). I run Suse about 90% of the time. I run XP when I want to do any video editing (I cannot get my AverMedia PCI 550 card to work in Linux), or printing out photos (in Suse, the printouts on my Canon i960 just are not that great).
XP has shortcomings just as Linux does. However, if you’re so blind to sit there and say that XP never has any stability issues, then you’re only fooling yourself.
I have the same experience. XP doesn’t crader on me. I use both. More Linux.
I just wouldn’t say XP is a very good OS. I’d say it’s acceptible for dedicated use in business and it’s better for multi-media. But for a programmer not doing VB or using the MS suite, it could use a lot of native apps that aren’t there.
I’d argue that for multimedia creation you want a Mac.. For several reasons, including ths software.
For multimedia playback, you want anything but a Windows box. I remember using Windows to play video and having 3 different video players (although I rarely used realplayer, when I had to it was awful).
More and more I become convinced that Windows is little more than a toy operating system. Microsoft has been continually trying to pack good functionality onto a system that’s nothing but a toy: They’ve hired Dave Cutler to write them a nice VMS-esque kernel (heavy process, blah blah blah). They’ve worked the registry over and over again to make it not completely destroy a system every 6 months when a program puts in a bad entry. They’ve created a decent filesystem for it. They’ve put a browser and e-mail client on their, etc etc. But in the end you’ve got a window manager with no functionality; a horrible monolithic design (with amazing crash recovery I must admit, explorer dies and it restarts in the same state; usually).
They’ve inserted a media player which makes the thing feel like an advertisement for everything. They’ve thrown on a theme which makes it feel like a crayola box.
And now they’re adding neat looking stuff (Vista) and closing it off from users (no theming for users, come on this is 2005 guys).
They add in multiple users, but force you to use a cartoonish gui to use it (not a big deal, just playing into the crayola thing). They add on full remote usability, but cripple it if you don’t buy Server 2003 (WinXP Pro only allows one user to use the computer at a time).
Anyway, the actual article was awfully short. It’s nice that he can switch, but come on man where are the caveats?! It’s often said, never use software if the man page has no “bugs” section. Or worse, if it has an empty “bugs” section!
To put it bluntly, your ignorance is not a testament to XP’s stability.
A lot of people, me included, have had major problems with XP and its instabilities. This does not mean, however, that everybody will have the same poor experiences that I have had, and neither do I profess that my experiences are a universal fact.
Or was your post a clever parody of the XP evangelists on OSnews?
Actually, I believe that is both:
“To put it bluntly, your ignorance is not a testament to XP’s stability. ”
and
“Or was your post a clever parody of the XP evangelists on OSnews?”
I’ve had stability problems with both XP and Linux, but they have all been hardware problems.
Start by getting some manners.
Oh… and find a decent speller while you’re at it. (disredit?)
OSNews should really consider prohibiting anonymous posts. (or at least add a filter-out option.)
As for XP being stable.
The OS is fairly stable. However, once you start installing anti-virus, firewall, ad-blockers, decent defragger, office, development tools, etc, etc you start getting severe stability problems.
I had to reboot my Windows XP machine 4 times this morning, just because some ape in Xerox, managed to screw up the clean up section of his TWAIN driver.
Somehow, I don’t see Linux go down in flames due to sane-backend errors.
Gilboa
not a bad story, good to hear another person succesfully switched to linux.
xp can and probably will hav stability issues even on good hardware. it takes a truckload of tweeking to make it stable and fast.
??? Where have you been all those years ???
XP does not need tweaking to be stable. I’m running mine since 2.5 years and it’s still has good as when I last installed it. The only “tweaking” done was to customize its interface and behavior. For the rest, it runs just fine thank you. If yours crashes or hang all the time, maybe you should: Update your BIOS and set it you run ‘normally’ (do not overclock anything unless you want to live dangerously and risk crashes); Use updated drivers for your hardware (if you can’t, update to modern hardware that were design to run with XP).
I have tried all that, XP refuses to properly find my ps/2 port on my dell. It just can’t find it. I can’t even disable the PS/2 ports and use USB keyboards and Mice as it still tries to find the PS/2 ones.
I am sorry but the only time I am forced to use XP is when I am removing spyware from firewalled computers. The website says requires IE, and the home owners obey.
NO other OS allows system files to be overwritten with such ease as Windows. XP is better than the older versions. Vista hopefully will be better yet, but MSFT is still reinventing Unix and doing it badly.
I am now glad I never liked IE for personal taste reasons. I am glad I found out about Open Office years ago. I am glad I switched all my documents years ago. It made switching to OS X last year almost painless.
I ran XP for several years before switching to OS X and Mac’s. The biggest problem with XP, or any windows version for that matter, is that Windows will run just fine as long as you stick to MS software. As soon as you start installing 3rd party software Windows starts getting flakey. I won’t go into wether I believe this is by design or not, however. I spent many an evening coming into the computer room for a quick 10 minute task and then having to spend an hour or more fixing some problem that cropped up.
I know far more people who are having stability problems with XP than I do people who have none. The only way to fix windows is to bite the bullet and do a total rewrite.
Well for my part, I know more people who don’t have any problem with XP than those who have. The real problem is usually the user who don’t know what he/she is doing and blame the OS afterward because of crashes of BSOD.
Also, any 3rd party I’ve installed never screwed my XP installation either. And no, I don’t run any spyware/virus/other_junk detector on my system and everything just run fine.
Using a computer is like sex: you have to play it safe and you won’t have any problem. Simple, but true.
The real problem is usually the user who don’t know what he/she is doing and blame the OS afterward because of crashes of BSOD.
I’m sorry, but when a user can easily cause crashes and BSODs I do believe we have a problem there. I know many quite computer illiterate people (some of them not even very intelligent) using Mac OS X, but I haven’t seen any of them crash OS X, by making stupid mistakes.
Look at all of the hardware combinations that XP has to run on. You will of course have a certain percentage of users with incompatible hardware / poor drivers.
First off, I’m the last person who wants to praise any Microsoft product, because I try to use them as little as possible. However, I’m really tired of hearing people trash XP on stability. Sure it’s a little slower then hoped, but as far as stability goes: XP is 100 times more stable then any other microsoft consumer OS. I have used it for 4 years now (on different machines) and I can honestly say the only time it has crashed has been:
1. Graphics Driver (installed new one and it hasn’t happened again)
2. Hardware failure
3. A virus my wife got
Yes MS has their evil ways, but XP is a stable operating system and recommended for any daily use OS.
It seems that the article doesn’t really go into any details, and is just a general overview. The author tries to hit some points, but seems more focused on OpenOffice than he is on Linux.
of a linux migration, now with a “dedicated” Linux laptop, I’m pushing myself that way.
… I got my first computer in 1985. It is perfectly possible to live without.
… I got my first x86 computer in 1994.
What so special about it? I’m living without windows for past 4 Years! Started playing with Redhat 5 and purchased Redhat 7.1 and ever since continued to use it. If one decides he/she can definately live without MS trap. You cannot totally understand the power of Linux and its apps till you fullay not use it! The meaning is, do not keep your Windows and Linux together on single machine! Remove MS Windows and totally relay on Linux! Put your important data in Linux, Store your files in Linux. Trust me Linux will stand for your expetations!
and still don’t forget to backup your important data… 🙂
Tell me about it. I used DD to copy W2K from a 60 Gb PATA to a 200 Gb SATA. Disaster! (yes I checked my arguments)*. And even when I installed Suse 9.1 on the other 250 Gb SATA. The bootloader wouldn’t take until I switched the Master #1 (the Linux drive) to Master #0. Then copied my HOME from the 120 Gb PATA to the 250 SATA. Now I only have a minor permission problem to resolve, and to bring Suse current.
*My understanding is that DD is ONLY suppose to read the source drive. If I hadn’t gotten an error a bit through, it would have most likely trashed the entire drive.
There are a number of free spell checkers available under linux. I suggest you try some of them
Sounds kind of like a bogus article. I don’t doubt that he used Linux for a year, I’m sure he did. But some of the things he says are kind of bogus. Printer drivers not working? Thats an HP problem. The regitry fiasco? I really don’t think that was meant to be user friendly. Its more of a settings place for the applications. Windows still has plenty of *.ini files for him to edit if he really feels so inclined.
One of the key factors for people not switching is what he said, I am not a gamer, and don’t depend on special hardware or application software but many businesses do depend on special application software. Just using Open Office and GnuCash won’t cut it.
My biggest gripe with this article is that his 1 year project succeeded because he wanted it to. We didn’t hear about any drawbacks he had using Suse aside from the PDA. What were his needs? What were the needs of the ministry?
It’s a user commentary about an experience. It’s not a professional essay “decrying the practices of the evil Microsoft.” Take it for what it is, it’s not fair to elevate it to more so that you can critique at an easier level…
Besides, it seems to be clearly more pro Linux and less anti-Microsoft. And, HP does ship proprietary software…
Yea, I also disliked the lack of drawbacks; it’s hard to believe when things just go flawlessly. You at least expect to hear about the problems he caused himself!
User created problems? Impossible!
Not that im a huge Windows fan! (i use Mac OS) but geez upgrading over the top of another version of Windows is a recipe for disaster… Before i sold my PC and switched to the Mac platform, i would always do a complete format of the drive before installing a new version of windows. I did the upgrade over the top method a couple of times and it was more trouble than it was worth.
So the writer left Windows 98 for SuSE 9.2 Professional. They don’t compair. Windows 98 is an old operating system, SuSE 9.2 is a modern operating system. It’s like leaving OS2 for Windows XP…
I agree that it would be more interesting to read about the experiences of someone leaving Win2K or XP for a modern Linux desktop distro like SuSE, since those OSes are on roughly the same level in terms of UI aesthetics and other similar factors.
Since you bring it up, though, I’d love to see a series of performance and “usability” tests between OS/2 and Windows XP or modern Linux distros on the same hardware and with the same application mix.
Even Warp 3 danced rings around NT ten years ago in terms of general performance (and did so in both single and multi-CPU configurations), and I haven’t seen much from Microsoft to convince me that things would be all that much different today. 🙂
I’ve lived without a Windows box for hmm… nine years? I have Macs so it’s not hard at all. Everything I can think of doing with a computer I’ve found simple solutions with a Mac. Video editing, word processing, image manipulation, music generation, DVD creation, playing video games, photo organization, web development, faxing, printing, browsing the web, email, scientific work… all can be done without Windows. So … is this really news?
to him, it is news … you should consider that not all people are at equal stages in the computer world, just like not all people are doctors, not all people are lawyers, etc etc. as an example, i am learning to speak brasilian portuguese for 3 months and my level of expertise is not the same as a native of brasil. but, i am still proud of my accomplishments when i learn something new. imagine how i would feel if some person told me that my skill level was garbage and i should stay with english as my only form of verbal communication.
This is a death sign for Microsoft. When this type of user – the person who in a “knowlege worker” and also a some-time experimenter/tweaker realizes the severe deficiencies of the proprietary, closed-source model in favor of the Open-Source model – it is a disaster for Microsoft and they know it. People like evangelinux who wrote this article are the kind of people who lead trends, and ultimately influence a lot of other people around them. What they are doing now is probably what most people with a bit less knowlege or enthusiasm will probably also be doing in the not-too-distant future. At any rate, his article is interesting because he is, as he himself attests, a “knowlege worker”, i.e. a person who utilizes a computer as a tool as an essential component of knowlege systems. It is interesting to note that a lot of criticisms of the article are probably NOT written by people who have a lot of experience utilizing computers as knowledge tools and so they can criticize people like evangelinux who is actually using a computer for critical functions without really appreciating what that reliance entails on a day-to-day basis. I should also note that many of these people may themselves be in IT but often these IT workers – so-called systems admins or helpdesk people – only install these systems but don’t actually know what it is like to actually use and rely on these systems for a variety of critical tasks.
evangelinux does a good job of explaining not just how he switched from one system to another but also conveying to some extent the change in methodology involved in switching from the closed system to an open one and the benefits gained from it.
Watch as the paid MS trolls post in full force. Note to these trolls: get a real job supporting products you honestly use and stand behind instead of posting retorts from a script
he who posts Anonymously soon feels like Rodney Dangerfield.
He who posts Anonymously and says stupid things feels this way faster
OMG not another “ive-dumped-windows-and-changed-to-linux-and-it-rocks-and-im-a-leet-ha xor-and-you-should-do-the-same-and-whatever” article!
enough already!
My OS is better than your OS. I don’t care and neither should you. If your OS works for you then use it and shut up. If it doesn’t then stop whinging and either learn how to use it or move to another OS you can use and shut up.
See, the issue is that maybe these articles might get someone to try a Linux based distro. That is the point. It is the same when someone reviews OSX or you get a beta review of Vista. People are just out there trying to show everyone else what is possible and what might be possible. If you don’t like reading these types of articles, pass on by. Some people, including myself, like to see how people are working with technology and I like it when the give a review of how they percieve a piece of tech.
[Edited for grammar (sorry)]
Edited 2005-11-09 03:23
…nobody would realize that alternatives exist at all, since most PCs come with Windows, most users only know about Windows, and most magazines and web sites focus on Windows almost exclusively.
Operating systems are not the same, and no OS is a good solution for everybody. That’s simply the nature of the beast — computer users are a very large and very diverse group of people.
Sometimes the differences between one OS and another are merely aesthetic in nature or relatively minor in impact, but sometimes the differences can make a huge difference for a particular user. Some OSes that are in popular use have flaws which can cost a user a lot of time or effort.
I think this information is important, and sites like this one exist so information like that can be shared.
If you don’t like that type of posting, perhaps this site isn’t for you?
Unfortunately this article ducks all the issues that can throw those new to Linux such as adding full multimedia support (mp3, DVDs, etc), networking (samba), firewalling (iptables), adding or deleting new hdds/partitions, setting up 3D drivers, wifi hell and so on. None of them is intuitive.
Articles like this will really only start to bite when they cover the tough times as well as the good times and are written by people sufficiently well known to influence others. Linux sorely lacks persuasive advocates. So some bloke on the net says that SUSE 9.2 is great for writing letters? It is as it happens. It’s a brilliant distro. But so what.
Once again, it’s a user story/journal. It’s not supposed to be an essay, comparison, review, or anything else. You cannot evaluate it as one, it’s simply stupid to try and interpret something in a genre it doesn’t fit in.
But I’ll address your questions:
Multimedia support: Win32 codecs + gstreamer plugins (I’m not sure yet what I can’t play, maybe DRM protected AAC?)
Samba: Works better on Linux than Windows, considering you don’t run Samba on Windows
. Seriously though, the integration with Linux into Windows networks is better today than integration of Windows into Windows networks was 5 years ago. People didn’t cry “it’s not desktop ready” then.
Firewalling: There’s only like 3 or so different utilities to make this easy for you. Many distributions ship with default utilities to help you setup a firewall (almost always a GUI).
Partitioning: What’s it called, QTParted or something? Come on, don’t tell me you’ve never hosed a Win2k system with it’s partition manager
.
3D Drivers: Nvidia’s drivers are quite easy (and have been for like 2 years), ATI’s are still pathetic (I speak from experience now).
Wifi Hell: If you have a supported card you’ll have wet dreams about how easily it all works. Of course, the number of supported cards is VERY few. It’ll improve.
I’ve got news for you: Nothing about your computer is intuitive. No, hush, nothing. Do you touch you grab things on your screen and move them into folders (physical ones)? No, then it’s not intuitive is it.. By intuitive you actually mean: Like other popular systems. Intuitive seems to always be defined by the users past experiences. I guarantee you that someone who’s never used a computer will not find any operating system intuitive (to use or administrate).
And the last thing you want is perfectly intuitive administration (of serious things beyond adding users and firewalls); the last thing you need is people saying “oh yea, I need an ftp server *click* neat I can ftp to my computer!”
” written by people sufficiently well known to influence others.”
I think the point of these articles is that they *aren’t* written by people who are well known! Would you prefer it if Linus wrote one? Or do we need Bill Gates to write it for it to matter?
The original article was put up for comment on OS News. So let’s pay it the compliment of assessing it for a little more meat than “I Luv SUSE” scrawled on the back of a beer mat.
Would I try Linux on the basis you’ve outlined in your post? I think not. It sounds terribly confusing: what are gstreamer plugins, what’s a GUI, what on earth is QTParted? It sounds like a disease. Besides, who are you?
Would I try Linux on the basis of a clear and well-written article in a newspaper or on the net from a public or at least publicly known figure who said this stuff rocks and it’s the future? You bet.
By intuitive, I mean software that is written from the user’s point of view and not from the developer’s. The first tends to be easier to use than the second. Mac OS is great at this; Linux, as yet, is not.
I’m writing this on Debian Sid. But if my mother asked for a computer, she’s be steered to an Apple laptop. There are friends I can think of to whom I would suggest SUSE, for sure, but not that many. Most, I suspect, would be much happier with Apple. That’s how it is today. Give it a year and it may not be. Who knows?
Would I try Linux on the basis of a clear and well-written article in a newspaper or on the net from a public or at least publicly known figure who said this stuff rocks and it’s the future? You bet.
This is opposite to most people in this world. They don’t believe the media, they don’t read the articles, they don’t care.
They don’t even know Microsoft or have only heard something vague. They do know the name windows. That’s their computer
Most people use something they’ve heard of from somebody else. Mouth to ear-method.
That’s the way Linux is getting spread – that’s how most news is getting spread.
Only the more enlightened people (those who care) read the articles.
GNU/Linux is ready on the desktop, and it’s as easy as Mac.. or Mac OS X is as difficult as GNU/Linux
” written by people sufficiently well known to influence others.”
I think the point of these articles is that they *aren’t* written by people who are well known! Would you prefer it if Linus wrote one? Or do we need Bill Gates to write it for it to matter?
Well it would if a movie actor/actress sportsperson came up with one … or endorsed one..imagine Mario Sharapova endorsing Ubuntu !
Once again, it’s a user story/journal. It’s not supposed to be an essay, comparison, review, or anything else. You cannot evaluate it as one, it’s simply stupid to try and interpret something in a genre it doesn’t fit in.
Well, it does fit in a genre called OPINION
six years without windows here.
it has beed a gradual-but-not-slow process, say 6 months to get to a 100% linux – 0% windows ratio.
…then i said bye bye to microsoft.
I’ve installed linux on various friends pc’s and i’m a super villain
The artical just shows that Linux can do a task that THIS person wants it to do in the best wahy possible, thats what we use a operating system for right?
The people that STILL think Linux is not ready for the desktop should wake up, Linux DOES do the jobs you want it to do, just not the way your used to.
I have been using my archlinux system now for 1.5 years and other linux based systems since 1997. It is funny though I have not had to do a reinstall of the OS. I was doing a reinstall of WinXX every three months at least.
I love the comments to these articles.
Heres a summary for everyone:
“Oh he only uses Openoffice what does he know?”
“I use n distro and it is better for n reasons”
“What took him so long I have been using Linux for n years”
“My XP has never had a problem in n years. What’s he talking about. I love Microsoft”
“Yeah XP sux cos I use a Mac for n years. BTW, Linux sux too”
“This aticle doesn’t say enough about anything I want to read”
“This article says too much about what I don’t want to hear”
I think it was a good article that tried not to start more flaming and comments like the ones above. Failed obviously. You can’t please everyone. It’s still good to hear about peoples experiences in changing from and to whatever OS/distro.
Actually, what I really prefer to read is an article that address a particular problem, and therefore can help other people to solve this problem.
Though I am also a Linux user, I see “I switch to linux” articles more as a trend, while there is in fact both goods and bads in both OSes.
Hey there were some really good comments posted above, amazing.
I see your point about what you would like to see in the article, fair enough, I wouldn’t complain but… I use forums to search for solutions and help people. What this means is if the author wrote a whole paragraph on how he made jack recognise his USB headset i would most likely wonder why he bothered OR huff and think “yeah I remember that one”. Either way not really useful to me so I don’t fully agree with you. I say keep it simple and general so it alerts people but doesn’t annoy them. I definately don’t want to see whole articles devoted to specific problems like “how i got my canon scsi scanner working in Gobolinux”. Exciting.
I have been using Linux since 1993, when I downloaded my first set of slackware disks. I have tried almost every distro under the sun, but I always kept a copy of Windows on my main machine. It was not until Mandrake 10.0 was released that I actually removed Windows for good.
There is always articles as to why Linux is not ready for the desktop, well… it is more than ready for mine.
Are you sure it is not ready for yours?
Edited 2005-11-08 23:37
The problem was/is protected content. There is still no way over Linux to view protected Windoze Media Player content and for a lot of desktop users Linux is unfortunately still to fiddly.
I run OS X on my Laptop, Ubuntu and Windows on my PC. Unfortunately there are still moments when I have to boot Windows. Unfortunately.
I’ve had my share of problems with Linux. I still have applications crash, suck up all of my CPU. I’ve had kernels refuse to compile. I’ve had hardware problems.
What I rarely have – in fact I don’t think this is happened once in 2005 – is a crash of the whole OS (or even X). I do have occasional complete and total system freeze in Windows and always have. Windows also tends to cruft up to a ridiculous degree over the course of a year.
I don’t really get whiny about it; I just wipe and reinstall Windows every so often (less and less because I only use it for 2 applications now). Doesn’t take very long, though I seriously wish Windows didn’t have to reboot a dozen times when I install it and apply all of the patches and security upgrades – that’s my single biggest gripe about it (I could use “slipstreaming” or whatever it’s called now I suppose.)
I like Linux a lot better but it has its share of holes (Still nothing like Adobe Premiere or the better Mac video editing applications). However once you learn to compile your own kernel, a lot of the old saws about hardware problems evaporate (I haven’t had any problem at all with DVD-RWs or anything like that, ever since the 2.6 kernels did away with the weird SCSI emulation scheme. I understand that CD-RWs/DVD-RWs could be a pain in the past, but that’s simply no longer the case – or, to be fair, that hasn’t been the case for me at all).
CUPS still gives me problems but once you have it set up, you rarely have to touch it.
When I switched over to be mainly a Linux user, I found I had to meet it half-way. I had to adjust some of my habits. A good example of this is in writing HTML which I used to do in Dreamweaver. I wound up learning how to do this more by hand. The loss here is that pages take a little longer to write. The benefit of it is my pages are better and cleaner, and troubleshooting format problems is quicker. If I went back to DW now, I’d probably do a lot more code by hand.
As to this last point, Linux is not for everyone. I know this from experience. Some friends have responded enthusiastically to it and made it their primary OS, others just were not willing to invest the time to learn new ways of doing things. And that’s fair enough – for many people computers are things they have to use, not things they enjoy learning about.
So as I’ve said before, Linux can replace Windows easily for power users and tweakers, and for beginners with very limited needs. The in-betweens are where it gets a little more complicated.
…not so good tho’ that it took 2 separate distro’s to do it. :/
Or did I misread the story?
Still, I think Linux has come more than far enough for a “typical” user, someone who has to write a few documents, surf the web, get email, etc. It has more productivity apps than I can count.
If you need linux, use it. If then you need Windows, use it, and when you find out that bsd is more suitable for you, grab it.
Get what Im saying?
sooooooooo stupid.
The article was about using an OS that has the hardware support and applications needed to meet a particular user’s objectives.
Too often, we try to compare our favorite distro to XP and proclaim the reasons why it equals or exceeds it – relative to the writer’s objectives. These objectives include subjective requirements that favor moving to Linux for reasons other than “does it do what I need”.
When we compare OS’s, we don’t just compare one OS to another because, in the end, an OS by itself is worthless. What we are comparing then, is the collective capability of the OS to help us meet our computing needs, from an applications, multimedia, hardware and other less tangible vantages such as look and feel, speed, quality and polish, stability, etc.
Let’s be clear. XP has the best application and hardware support on the third rock from the sun. Linux has fine applications too, but it is by all measures inferior to XP’s application and hardware support. So, from a mass perspective, XP will remain superior, regardless of the technical efficacy and other factors so passionately debated.
Linux needs better application and hardeware support, starting with squashing of OO.o 2 show stopper bugs and idiot proof wireless support. Its one hell of an OS, but most of us need Windows and that isn’t a bad thing. We needed make excuses about it. It works, we have an objective and we would be dumb not to use it. When Linux meets your needs, and my needs, then we have a real option and an exciting choice.
Edited 2005-11-09 04:22
OSNews posts another “windows killer” article. Nothing to see here.
Why is it that 99 percent of the people converting to linux do so with a 8-10 year old OS?
The Current year is 2005 and this is from a new
linux user:
Wow! Linux is better than Microsoft’s latest OS Windows 95!
So to summarize the article …
HP wrote crappy printer drivers, and his printer didn’t work in Windows 98. Then he installed Windows XP, and that was unstable. Cry me a f***ing river.
Did anyone seem to notice that the entire story revolved around his shitty HP printer?
Tried so many times…and its still load of crap…
Linux just doesn’t stand a chance
And as for the bull-crap of stability…my machine runs windows XP on 256 MB and its as stable as Linux but far more useful than linux as a desktop..
I put cygwin and i get all the sshd etc…Vista will feature monad and that will put Windows in the front seat in command line experience unless some zealots hate to learn something new and beneficial…
I am an expert Windows and OSX user but have never used or installed Linux before. I have read a lot about it and thnking of making my system a dual boot.
My question to everyone here is which linux should I use? Suse? Redhat? I’ve been reading good thngs about Gentoo, but I downloaded the pdf novel they have on how to install it and am very intimidated.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
Yawn…
Move along, move along, nothing worth reading in this article.
compare to an equal old linux or compare to win xp, otherwise your experience is completly usesless.
I am a C# developer working on Windows XP at work. I made a decision to try to live without Windows at home and try SUSE which I have been using for nearly two years now. I have had no problems during that time with virus or blue screen crashes. If I want to do a little development work at home I use Mono. Overall I am very impressed with Linux and recommend it to anyone thinking of making the switch. Despite what Microsoft would like you to think, the total cost of ownership is considerably less for the home user.
This was a nice read. I enjoyed it.
Anonymous wrote:
“Windows XP is a very good OS. The stability issues come when you begin installing applications onto XP.”
Which kind of defeats the whole exercise. A bare OS with no applications isn’t of much use to the average user. If you have to make Windows unstable in order to use it, what’s the point? 🙂
Apparently I have just been lucky that all 5 of my personal machines (different hardware) have never had a problem with XP. I also must be lucky that the 12,000 users that I support dont seem to have issues with their desktops.
The instances that I have seen XP be unstable in are not XP problems at all. They are poorly written drivers or apps. Does that mean that the OS is unstable?? I will let you answer that.
I have used Linux off and on since RedHat’s first distro and recently I downloaded every major distribution I could find to try them all out once again to see how Linux was progressing. What I found was disturbing to say the least. Laptop support was still very shaky. The same problems I had experienced with Linux since the beginning where still there, namely it had a very hard time configuring the Radeon xPress 200M graphics chipset in my laptop (had to run in VESA mode), sound support was difficult to get configured, and wireless well don’t get me started. I know what people are going to say, “Laptop support is not that good yet and you should install it on a desktop with components known to work with Linux!”, but folks that is not always an option. I am not going to go plunk down hundreds of bucks to build a new machine with SoundBlaster 16 cards, etc. just to run Linux.
Then there are the games… I love to play games, I mean real games not Solitaire or TuxRacer. I want to play Call Of Duty, Halo, and the rest and THEY DON’T RUN ON LINUX FOLKS! Yes there are some major titles that have found there way over like Unreal Tournament but the list is very short.
Until Linux can at least get the dang driver problem solved and I mean solved for almost all configurations it is going to struggle. I sure in the heck am not going to replace my XP and OS X boxes with Linux anytime soon. I have been running XP now for 2+ years and I have had no problems as long as I keep my freeware virus and firewall software up to date. My only big complaint is the amount of memory this hog requires to run. But when I can, I always use OS X on my Macs which is a superior experience to either Linux or XP in my opinion. OS X is fast, stable, beautiful, supports almost all the same open source software that Linux does, works every time all the time, and most importantly has A LOT OF GAMES!
In any case for those of you out there who are thinking about using Linux just be ready to fight the install process battle unless you have a really generic desktop that has good driver support. And if you want to play games forget it as the author of this article mentions.
I used to run Linux exclusively from 1997 to ~2003. Then I switched to XP and never looked back. Now I don’t have to spend any time futzing with my OS. I can just use my software to get stuff done.
This is a good story about a home migration. It starts with a SUSE dual boot. Which is how I started.
Two sugggestions for starting migration in an office environment:
First, Make Firefox available as an alternate browser. Use should be entirely voluntary for starters.
Second, In those environments (i.e. users of old versions of WP) where Word is not used and you have to use those abominations Word Viewer and Excel Viewer to read MS applications, install openoffice.org and allow it to replace Word Viewer and Excel Viewer. This will increase productivity. If you have a computer with MS Works the addition of openoffice.org is also something that should be done.
These two steps may seem like no brainers, but they are not being done in a lot of environments. If done they will allow people to get used to the two primary open source applications in a nonthreatening manner. After that, people will be familiar with this stuff and it will only be a matter of time.
Say no more.